I very
recently had the joy of spending six-and-a-half hours with a beautiful
thirteen-year-old girl named Grace Plumb, and her wonderful family. Grace is a TCK (Third Culture Kid), like myself, who is also multiracial, as I am. This
particular experience was very new to me, as I have never before spent time in
the company of someone who is a fan of my writings. I take for granted that the
people who are a fan of what I do, only get to see me while I am working; they
don’t get to see me as who I am when I’m not C. JoyBell C. This
experience with Grace, was a new thing and I really didn’t know how to handle
it, at first. I didn’t know how to handle the way she bubbled over in
excitement and almost couldn’t contain herself while she talked about “just how
really, really, really, really great” my “quotes” are, I didn’t know how to
handle her adoring gaze... so I bowed my head and smiled, I said “thank you.”

The rest
of the time at Grace’s house unfolded in light. Our time spent together was
like walking with a constant ray of light that tripped over itself sometimes
and bubbled over like a Roman fountain here and there... I felt enlightened. I
was able to give of myself and see myself, at the same time. I think we see
ourselves best during the times that we give ourselves most. Just think about
it: when you give of yourself, you are putting pieces of yourself into your
hands and reaching over to put that into somebody else’s hands. So you get to
see those pieces of yourself inside your hands while you’re giving them away! I
had quite a few in-depth discussions with Grace, on life and reality. The
hardships of reality, the reasons why we are forced to become and to grow...
but I want to share with you just a fraction of our discussions, which struck
me the most (it struck me as I was speaking to her about it). I don’t know any
better way to convey in exactness, aside from relaying the discussion in
conversation mode and so I will do just that...

Me: “So,
of all the quotes of mine that you’ve read, which ones are your favourites?”

Grace:
“Oh my gosh, it’s so hard to say, I read so many of them, they’re all so, so
great... but one of them... Last night I lost the world and gained the
universe...”

Me:
“Yeah... you know when I wrote that... I wrote it because it was exactly,
exactly how I felt. I felt it and I just wrote it down... (Grace was looking at
me with eager eyes) I just felt that the night before that day, I had lost the
world but that it was okay because that next day I had gained the whole
universe.”

Grace:
“And there’s this other one... A star falls down and into your hands,
it seeps through your veins... something like that... and you have
to put it back in the sky and it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done or will
ever have to do but what’s your is yours and one day it will fall from the sky,
hit you in the head real hard, and you won’t have to put it back in the sky
anymore, because what’s yours is yours, whether if its up in the sky or right
there in your hands...”

Her eyes
sparkled like magnanimous glowing things, her face an expression of hunger to
know more about those words. We were sitting at their dining room table, a
plate of grapes and apples between us, a large root beer bottle obstructing our
view of each other, there was some BBQ on the table which the dog was sniffing
at... I suddenly fell into deep thought...

Me: “You
know... when I wrote that... you know there are moments in our lives, or
people, or things... there are memories and times or even just days... all
these things that we want to hold onto, we wish... we wish that we could make
things stay the same. We wish that we could hold on, we wish that we could
keep... but for some of us, like you and I— our lives are in fast-forward, we
are in fast-forward and we just can’t make things stay the same, we just can’t! Other people are born in one place, grow up all their lives in that same place, go to University there, all their family and friends are there, they take for granted the fact that they don't really need to strive and hold onto anyone or anything, just because everyone and everything is always there around them! They don't really understand what it means to hold on. But you and I, we know that sometimes people will push you away, or people make decisions and those
decisions change everything, or things just move so fast and they just don’t
stay the same way and you’re left holding onto what you wish you could keep...
but the thing is... you see, the thing is, what’s yours is yours. What’s yours
is yours regardless if you have to put it back up in the sky or if you have it
right there in your hands, because every moment that you have, every single
thing that happens to you in a fraction of a time in your life— those become a
part of you. They become a part of you because you felt them, because it built
you in a way or because it made you grow in a way or because it made you feel
something... and so the way I see it, is that I won’t throw any of those things
away because if I do, if I throw any of those people away, or things away, I’m
throwing a part of myself away, too. If I have to, I’ll put them back where
they came from, I’ll put them back in the sky; but I won’t throw them into the
trashcan. Can you see the difference there? (Grace nods her head, her face
reddened with emotion) And you know, the funny thing is, I’ve been thinking about
this for a while now, and just recently I have been wondering why people throw
away other people so easily, I just don’t understand it! You can see people who
say they are in love today; only to break up with each other tomorrow! Just
because something didn't feel right or just because something
felt off. But that’s just one example, there are so many other examples of
how people throw other people away too quickly, too soon, so easily! And I
wonder about it, because I don’t... I can’t, I just can’t understand it! Maybe
they just don’t see things, and life, the way that I see things, and life... I
see life as a collection of memories... I have this basin (I motion with my
hands in a circle, forming the shape of a basin in the air in front of me) and inside
this basin is a collection of all those memories, all those times I’ve lived,
all those small things... and these are what fill up my basin! This is
my life! And I just don’t know how other people see their lives or see what
their lives are made up of, in order for them to be able to throw anyone away!
Because when you walk down the street and you smile at someone— you have
created a moment between the both of you and that moment has become a part of
you, a part of your life. It’s there. It will forever be there— in your basin—
as one of your pieces! Every moment means something. Every smile that you make,
every connection between another that you make— those are all in your basin,
they fill up your basin and they make moments that fill up your life and that is your
life! So I want to... I really want to understand why and how people can throw
other people away so fast, so easily, the moment they see something they don’t
like, something that doesn’t make them feel good, they dismiss the person, they
write the person off, they move on into what they think is “better” for them,
and I want to understand how they can do that, because I can’t! I can’t do
that! What do you think Grace? How do you think other people see life? Is it so
different from how I see things? Is it so, so different?

Grace:
“Maybe, I guess, they don’t feel the small things?”

Me:
“Aha! I’ve got it! They go through life without taking things in with their two
hands! I’ve got it, I’ve got it! This is how it’s different, look at this: We all
go through life like we are walking through a toy store, with all the toys
lined up on the shelves, the difference between people is how they walk through
that toy store! Some of us pick up every toy we see, we hug a teddy bear, we
cradle a doll, we build little castles with the building blocks... and those
experiences bring us smiles, bring us joys, or other feelings, and we feel that
and each of those feelings become moments for us, become parts of our lives, to
us, become our own pieces! And then the other people... they walk
through the toy store... but they don’t touch anything, they don’t feel
anything!”

Grace:
“Or maybe they pick up toys and at first it makes them smile and it makes them
happy, but then they see something wrong with it, like it doesn’t have
batteries or it’s the wrong colour or whatever, and so they put it back, they
frown on it, they forget about it, they move on!”

Me:
“Yes! Yes, that’s it! But is there really something wrong with the toys?”

Grace:
“There’s not really anything wrong with the toys they put back; it’s just that
the people don’t appreciate how it made them feel before they started seeing
all the things that they think aren't good enough.”

Me: “The
people forget how it made then smile, how it made them happy, or all the other
things it made them feel, and they throw all of that away, they don’t take it
into themselves, because to them it’s not everything they want.”

Grace:
“Yeah, yes, that’s it.”

The
Christmas lights were blinking on the outside windows, the root beer bottle
still stood in between us, but in that moment I knew that Grace and I had
created our own moment together, to put into our own basins, to make a part of
ourselves, to make a part of our lives.

Hey wonderfuls! I really heart this video, and I hope you will too! Just to point out though, this video is dedicated to the general populace, all of whom deeply need to cultivate a lifestyle of empathy; this isn't really geared towards clairempaths (people who are born phenomenally empathic and can't do anything to stop it even if their lives depended on it.) For the rest of you, this video will be a great learning process. Short, simple but very powerful.

We are
taught by the mystic Rabbis that for everything there is a parallel opposite.
For example, for the beautiful thing/relationship/connection you are
experiencing, there is the potential for the exact parallel opposite to exist.
Now, here’s where I bring in my own insight... it is noticeable to me that
those of highly intuitive natures (now, not all people are like this okay, but
there are some) are able to actually perceive the potential for those parallel
opposites to exist. For the developing highly intuitive one, this can be an
extremely difficult journey. The unconscious is always plugged-in to those
parallel potentials so for example instead of being able to fully enjoy a good
thing; the developing highly intuitive will be plunging herself/himself into
those opposite frequencies which cause fears and doubts. The key is to master
the ability and to learn how to banish the other parallel by transforming the
dark energy into light energy. We banish the potential and transform dark into
light by not reacting to stimuli caused by the opposite potential and then to
further that— by reacting in the exact opposite way that our doubts and fears
would have us react. This requires an extraordinary amount of strength and most
people will not even have to tackle this area of reality in their lifetimes. We
don’t ask for it; it’s just the way some are born. There is another key to this
door: to stubbornly remember that the other parallel is not real; it is only a
POTENTIAL and it gains foot in our realities only if we continue to transmit its
frequencies. Now, how do you know which parallel is real for you? Refer to the
very point of its conception: was it negative or was it positive? The point of
conception is the truth of your reality. Stay in that truth.

I hope this helps those of you who are aware that you are different. Have a good day!

Today I
want to talk about the power of words. Obviously, I know what I’m talking
about, so please glean as much as you can from what I’m about to discuss.

I
believe that words create worlds. With a little more imagination, you may call
them “mini-universes.” How would I be able to classify these? It’s any area of
existence where life is taking place. I am convinced that when you have
conversations of the deeper nature, when you make plans of the more intimate
nature, when you write things to move in people’s blood, when you say things
with the intention to speak to someone’s heart— you create an area of existence
that begins to breathe it’s own life. You breathe life into something. It is
for this very reason that you should not say things half-heartedly, that you
should not utter or give intention to things if you do not possess the
dedication, endurance, commitment, determination to put your blood and your
soul where those intentions have gone to!

What
happens when you do build a world half-heartedly and then later just say “Oh I
was kidding”? This is the scary part. When you do that, you collapse a world
and make it fall into itself. I believe that the laws of the outer universe are
only repeated and repeated and repeated until they reach the deepest recesses
of our souls and I’m saying that to illustrate, that when you abandon a world
you’ve created with your words and your intentions, you have left a black hole
in it’s place. You have created a blackness of density that is denser than
light itself and what does that mean? That means that you leave a crater in
your life, open to be filled with darkness and negativity! You who have done
this, will in no way receive the last laugh.

Through
our lives, we have all created black holes up until the point when we learn
this knowledge, we realize this knowledge, we take this wisdom to heart and we
begin to act upon it! Know that the worlds you create— you are responsible for!
And walking away from those areas you have infused with life is not going to be
the end of those stories! It’s never the end of those stories. You will eat of
that darkness for as long as those black holes are there.

In
layman’s terms, we would say: “Don’t say shit if you don’t mean it.”

What if
you are the one left with a living world created alongside someone else who has
walked away from it? Then what happens? Unfortunately, you receive of that
negativity, as well. It creates pain, darkness, and a pain and a darkness
denser than light. A black hole. But darkness can be transmuted into light and
energy cannot be destroyed but it can in fact be transformed! If you can take a
black hole given to you and you’re powerful enough to transform it into a
thriving light? Then you are left with so much more than what you were about to
have when the world was created! How do you transform darkness into light?
(Hey, this is some heavy stuff, I should save this for a book!) What you do is
you identify the areas of grief and blackness and then you see that those areas
are meant to be transformed into a new and more powerful form of life than
originally intended. That’s the first step. The next part is actually doing it.
An extremely difficult process. Not meant to be understood by the masses. But
it can be simplified by this prescription: You transform darkness into light by
doing the exact opposite of what was done to you, by creating your own new
worlds with all dedication, determination, endurance, commitment to these! You
say what you mean and you mean what you say. It is extremely difficult to do this,
because during this process you will battle with an extraordinarily huge amount
of fear and doubt, given that you were the “benefactor” of other people’s
failures and errors, thus you have been left with these areas of pain and
darkness. It’s not a process for the weak; but it is attainable and can be
done. So you must, with the best of your intention, put your blood and your
soul into the words that you utter, from that moment on! You must yourself
become the total opposite of what you have been left with and in doing this
successfully, you will have gained the power to transform those areas of dense
nothingness into areas of thriving light.

This process of transforming dark energy into light energy is something that can be applied not only in the area of broken words and shattered intentions and plans; but this creative process may be applied wherever and whenever darkness has been introduced into our lives. For example, darkness received from parents, relatives, and other people whom you might have no capabilities to get away from at times when you would have been better off far away from them. In other words, when you were subjected to harsh circumstances with people you couldn't possibly have gotten away from by choice, that creates darkness in your world and it's this type of black hole which I'm referring to, that I believe can also be transformed into positivity and light by following the very same prescription I've entailed above. Do the very exact opposite of what what done to you, give the very exact opposite of what was given to you. Don't give that darkness away; transform it into light and give that light away. Create the process of transformation, through consciously thinking about applying the opposite of what was applied to you. Again, extremely difficult, but truly attainable! Now, you might be wondering why I also call this a "black hole" when I'm actually referring to things that are not of the "word-ly" nature. That is because, our relationships with the people closest to our lives (parents, relatives) have inborn hope and trust infused into them. When there is trust and hope— there is a created world from those exact raw materials. Worlds you didn't choose to be born into/ to enter into, yet you are subjected to nonetheless. Moreover, if it is your desire to collapse this form of world and have nothing to do with those connections any longer, the way to do that is by completely transforming that dark energy. Same prescription always. And collapse those unchosen worlds by refusing to be a conduit of that same flow of energy. Cut yourself off by not allowing yourself to transmit it.

There is a reason why my writings are different. There is a reason why my words are different. Because I
come from this area of knowledge and I know that everything I say, everything I
pen, is penned with blood and soul. I create living, thriving worlds. And I am
dedicated to everything that I say, everything that I write. In my personal
life, the only time I will walk away from a created world, is if I have been
pushed and pushed and pushed innumerable times and the nature of the creation
has already become altered by evil intentions coming from the other party,
hence, leaving me in a dangerous place to be in. Only then will I walk.

Why am I
writing this now? Why am I giving this knowledge away freely? Aren’t I stupid
to do so? Well, setting aside the fact that I probably am being stupid, I do
think that in writing this, I am doing my own transformations from darkness
into light, so in the end, I’m not really being stupid (YEY! Just realized this
on-the-spot!) You see, when knowledge like this is disseminated to the masses,
you are giving a huge amount of power to the generation of your children, the
next generation. And we all love our children. (Well. I KNOW I love my son!)
What better way to love our children than by changing the world for them? All
the worlds. For them.

People are creators. But I doubt
that many realize this. We are not meant to go out into the world and find
flawless things, we are not meant to sit down and have flawless things fall
into our laps. But we are creators. We can create a beautiful thing out of what
we have. The problem with idealistic people is that they see themselves as
receivers instead of creators, they end up hunting for the flaw in everything
in order to measure it up to their ideals. Now, when you see yourself as a
creator, you can look at a chunk of marble and see the angel within it. Then
you carve until you have set that angel free.

It’s creators that the world
needs. Idealists are takers. Creators are demi-gods.

The
above is something I recently said. One of my major inspirations in life is
Michelangelo, who once said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I
set him free.” Before my visit to Italy, I didn’t know terribly much about
Michelangelo. But after standing in the magnificent presence of Michelangelo’s
David, and walking in his footsteps in Florence (literal footsteps in the
Medici territory) I realized that he is the person who most inspires me.

Today
I’d like to discuss my recent writing.

We,
unfortunately, are living in an era when idealism is encouraged. But let me ask
you... if everyone in the world expects to receive all the most beautiful and
most perfect things, then who is supposed to be making these beautiful and
perfect things? If everyone is an idealist; then where are the creators? Who’s
chiseling at the chunks of marble? Because people today aren’t being taught to
chisel chunks of marble, rather, people are being encouraged to find the marble
angels. It is good to look for marble angels; but it is better to be
Michelangelo! And if there are no Michelangelos, there are no marble angels!
What has happened to all of the demi-gods?

In a slightly
related post on my Writer Page Timeline, by a reader named Preston, he asked me
about these words of mine:

The
only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if
we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can
learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if
we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.

He said that he is so wrapped-up in daily fears that it has become like an
outer shell/ crust around him, and he asked how he can apply my words above to
everyday life in a practical way, to which I responded: “The bigger your fears,
the bigger your potential bravery. The bigger your fears, the bigger your
potential courage. Courage isn’t measured by how much fear we don’t have; but
courage is measured by how much fear we overcome. If you have no fears, this
doesn’t mean you are brave. So you have to see yourself, fears and all (like a
chunk of marble) and then you have to see the potential for courage (like the
angel within the marble.) The way that you can “throw yourself out into the
open” on a daily basis, is by going beyond your ideals, by going beyond your
own opinions and judgments, by going beyond what you already understand, to
step into the territory of what you don’t understand yet. And from there, you
will become exposed, you will learn, you will change, you will grow, you will
live.”

Michelangelo,
by the way, was not someone who saw himself as entitled to beautiful and
perfect things. That’s not why he carved angels out of marble. In fact,
Michelangelo was more like a slave to the Medici family. Commissioned to live
here, commissioned to live there— one could say that he was forced to see the
angels in the marble. One could say it was his only possible way to see beauty. Now look at what he made, look at what he did! And if he had never lived? We would have
never been able to bear witness to some of the most beautiful and magnificent
creations in the history of mankind.

I
thought I’d fill you all in on why I’ve been away. As most of you will have
noticed by now, I’ve been away for some time and while gone, I have thought
about what I ought to say upon my return.

First
and foremost, let me just say, that in my many years of having this career as a
writer, I have never been away for this long. Longest I’ve ever been away in the
past was for two days. This time though, I was on the brink of total burnout.
There are a lot of people on my Writer Page and I receive hundreds and hundreds
of emails filled with life stories and the pouring out of hearts. When I’m on
my page, I feel everything going on with all the people there. When I read
emails from people, I feel their pain, happiness, sorrow, fear... I get lost
inside the inner worlds of so many other individuals. And that is quite
unfortunate on my part. Just for the record, my writings are not therapeutic for
me. I know that many writers say they write in order to heal themselves and so
on and so forth; but when I write, I am not putting myself through therapy. My
writing isn’t a healing process for me. I’m not one of those writers. Nevertheless,
my writings have become, for so very many— exactly that! Therapy. I have actual
cases of people coming out of rehab thanks to the things that I have written! This
always surprises me because the things that I write are simply my soul-stuff. We
all have soul-stuff. I’m just different in that my soul-matter, evidently,
happens to be made of ambrosia and honey? And apparently that’s something that
the world needs? It also surprises me because I never began a career in writing
with the intention of transforming lives! It just began to happen all on its
own! It took on a life of its own!

Let me
add to this by saying that, such has been the nature of my life, thus far. For
some reason invisible to the naked eye, it seems like people are under the
persuasion that I am responsible for being all the things that they can’t be,
for their benefit. I can trace this back to my parents, relatives and everyone,
really! I have had to put myself aside in order to accommodate the hearts of
others. Of course, in the end they grow into something beautiful while I am
left with all of their old wounds and without even a simple acknowledgment of
my presence. As if my presence that I gave them in their lives was something
they were entitled to have, as if I was a disposable commodity. I too often
lost myself in the process of helping others find themselves and it is that
exact feeling which I was beginning to have, all over again, with regards to my
connections with the world, through what I do as an author.

I needed
to step back and ask myself what I was doing. I was getting so caught up in
everyone else, that I was beginning to lose sight of my core self. And that is
always a “no, no.” Something negative starts happening inside you when you
begin to breathe for everyone else and forget to breathe for yourself!
Something wrong starts taking place when you begin to feel like all the things
you learn and every single experience that you have is for the benefit of
others and not yourself. You take on a lifestyle of breathing for other people,
of experiencing and feeling and learning for other people rather than for
yourself. I can imagine that many others would condone this or even praise this;
but this just isn’t my path. I don’t believe in breathing and feeling for others.
I believe I was born for myself. And then for a very few others who have played
or who will play a big role in my life, my journey. I think that when you begin
breathing for the rest of the world— your lungs are going to stop functioning
all too soon. You lose your vision, your senses... they become others’ vision
and others’ senses... others’ breathing patterns instead of your own! You can throw pieces of yourself out there
so much and so often, that you begin to lose those pieces and forget what they
look like. It becomes frightening.

I have
been able to truly breathe for myself and enjoy myself while away. I’ve been
listening to music and reading my work (because, believe it or not, I write so
much that I fail to ever step back and actually read what it is that I write!) And
I have been laughing harder than I have laughed in a long time. And I always
laugh really hard, but while away, I have laughed like a wild, wild thing over
the smallest details of life (which is just the way that I was born— seriously,
as an infant I fell off of things like high chairs and tables from laughing so
hard, then I would land on the floor still laughing so hard, it amazed my
parents how I didn’t break my bones or break my head open or something) and
it’s been good to “get back to me.” I’ve been playing with kids until my legs have
gotten covered in dust and dragonfly wings (!), I’ve been having quiet times of
solitude and contemplation out in nature, I’ve been spending a whole lot more time
with great, great, great friends and I have been rediscovering the beauty of
the glazed doughnut. Oh, and going to Holiday cocktail parties.

It’s
good to be back (both back to me and back to my career). But I am back this
time in a new way. I am hereafter, going to keep breathing for myself. It’s a
joy to hear from you and to write to all of you. Thank you for your continued
loyalty.

SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND

I SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE

THE DAILY BELL

MEET ME AT FACEBOOK!

FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD!

ON GOODREADS

"I am a flawed person. A brook with many stones, a clear blue sky with many blackbirds. I have many shortcomings. A rainbow that’s not long enough, a starry night with clouds. But I can only be thankful to the God who loves me just this way, and I can only be grateful to the people in my life who accept the clear blue sky with many blackbirds and who are patient with the rainbow that isn’t long enough. And because of this, I am taught love, because of this I love my God, and I love these people."— C. JoyBell C.

DISCLAIMER

This blog is not an online diary. Anything reflected through my writings here, do not necessarily mirror my present emotional, mental, or physical state, unless directly stated. Furthermore, any resemblances to you or to anyone you know, is purely coincidental and is not a result of me creating any "blind items" about you or your loved ones and friends. Moreover, your reading of my writings does not constitute a marriage, personal relationship, or personal friendship, between us.